What's in (and not in) Doctor B’s BARF?

Raw meaty bones, offal, veges, fruit, and other healthy foods like raw eggs, yoghurt, kelp, healthy seeds and oils and other herbs…. all from Doctor B’s healthy food pyR.A.W.mid, form the basis of our BARF diets for dogs and cats. You can learn more about the individual ingredients which are included in Doctor B’s BARF here.

So as you have probably gathered by now, raw is key. Most commercially available processed dog food is cooked, and cooking food damages some of the valuable ‘live’ enzymes as well as phytonutrients and many of the vitamins and minerals found in raw meat and vegetables. These are the very enzymes that pets need to be able to digest food properly. Dogs and cats bodies digest raw meat far better than cooked, so they get more nutritional value from it. Animals fed a raw diet have also been found to have a higher proportion of “good bacteria” in their gut, and less “bad bacteria”, which helps to boost not only gut health, but the entire immune system. Another reason why raw really can help to restore animal wellness.

Furthermore, many commercial pet foods (particularly dry) are based on grains, because carbohydrates are needed to bind the food together. Throughout evolution, dogs and cats did not survive on a primarily grain-based diet, and their bodies have not been designed to do so. While they can digest and utilise some carbohydrates – and certainly fibre (ideally from veges and/or fruit) is important for digestive health – pets do not need, and many cannot properly digest such a large proportion of carbohydrates. This helps to explain why these animals often have much bigger stools than those fed a raw diet: much of the food which goes “in” simply comes back “out” as waste as it can’t be effectively utilised by the animal’s body.

And of course, most processed pet foods contain preservatives and unnatural additives, which were most definitely not part of an evolutionary diet…

Just as important is what is NOT in any Doctor B’s BARF recipe:

No added salt or sugar

No artificial colours, flavours or preservatives

No fillers, grains or gluten

No genetically modified ingredients

No heat-damaged nutrients

None of these are natural or healthy for pets, nor are they what evolution designed them to eat. We only include wholesome raw foods, the way nature intended our pets to eat to help them live a long, active, happy & healthy life.